Monday, March 30, 2015

The NRA Anti-Defamation League weighs in.

An anonymous commenter, although I have a pretty good idea who it is, writes a comment in response to this post.

"And yet you need a ride and/or lodging at The NRA Annual Meetings in Nashville. Why don't you just join the anti-gun protesters in Nashville? That may be where you belong. Why the hell do you want to go to The NRA's annual meetings, since you're so much against them? You do use your voice, but it comes out of both sides of your mouth. I think you're just jealous, because The NRA has more influence to preserve Amendment II than all the other pro-gun organizations combined. Hooray for The NRA!"

Now, if this is who I think it is (and I love the man like a brother) I would respond thusly.

My disdain for the NRA (especially the present leadership since the LaPierre-engineered coup against Neal Knox)is born of twenty years of personally-witnessed disappointments, failures to act on opportunities, and sellouts on critical issues galore. The NRA, when it does move in the interest of firearm rights, usually has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the fight, and even then makes an inconstant and unreliable ally, more concerned about fundraising and making the press love them than actually winning the fight in question. My memories of the their reluctance to get into the Fast and Furious fight, followed by their use of it to raise money under the lying pretense that they were "alone in the wilderness" on the issue early on is particularly vivid in my memory.

There are many good men and women in the NRA, including some on the board. There are also many long-time scoundrels on that board like Grover Norquist, selected because they are loyal to the LaPierre regime. If I poke fun at the NRA leadership it is because they are an easy target who have done much to deserve my disdain. I still have hope that the NRA will one day become as uncompromising as GOA, but being a practical man, that's not the way to bet. In defending the regime of Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox, you are defending amoral manipulators who are not deserving of your commendable loyalty to the organization. I'm sorry, truly sorry, that you are offended by my posts, but the NRA leadership has done much to earn any sneering I do.

8 comments:

Hi Mike,'Reminds me of the time a few years ago now when you and Dave were denied presence at the NRA get-together in Charlotte. What Geeks! 'Showed their true colors!! Ever since, they have gotten not one thin dime from me and I let my then membership lapse. Boy did they crank up the propaganda for me to come back to the fold after that, but still, not one dime!! Since I've tossed my hat in the Ring with GOA!!! 'Nuff said!!Your man in Louisiana,Got Gunz??,III%,skybill-out

Here is the basic fact. The Second Amendment is a preemption of the absolute highest order - plain and unambiguous- enshrined directly in our Constitution- the HIGHEST law of the land. It is a plain statement of individual right left SOLELY to the people themselves - NOT a tenth amendment issue hence.

The NRA opposes constitutional carry - it did so OPENLY in my state after promising it would not toss open carriers under the bus - but it did exactly that. It partnered with democrats on a bill that BANS all carriage of rifles. It advocated the election of a known gun banner as well.

But that aside, the state preemption CON is the worst! It is an affront to the Second itself. It undermines the federal preemption and attempts to empower the states with authority IT CANNOT HAVE because it's a RIGHT that is EXPRESSLY left to the PEOPLE ourselves. State preemption is a huge con - got magazine bans? Got suppressor bans? Got, well, you get the point. The NRA emboldens state governments to do these things, to exert power it cannot legitimately have. That makes the NRA a GUN CONTROL group!

Every championed concealed carry legislation is ACTUALLY a GUN CONTROL BILL!!! Let's just face that ok?

I don't disagree that there are good folks within the NRA, but good folks often do bad things sometimes out of ignorance. Some may not want to hear it but it's just true- the NRA has EARNED the Negotiating Rights Away label. It's exactly what it has done.

One must ask, if good folks KNOW they are doing wrong, because they have been SHOWN what is wrong AND why it's wrong, and they continue to DO wrong knowingly, how can they remain good people?

I used to believe the "work on the inside to make things better" excuse but I've learned my lesson. There is no fixing the NRA from the "inside". Those in control DONT THINK ANYTHING IS BROKEN!!!

The NRA doesn't care about a kid expelled over a pop tart or even a kid wearing a NRA shirt. They don't care about you me or our rights. Those folks care about conning people out of their money - so they can hook their buddies in congress up with donations. Got Harry Reid?

No thanks. I'll continue to call the NRA just EXACTLY what is ACTIONS demonstrate. It's a disguised, operating behind closed doors GUN CONTROL organization that is bent on destroying federal preemption,supplanting Amendment Two with manufactured State Preeemption. That way it can ensure survival of the due process incorporation (permission slip structure) that sees the NRA "trainers" unjustly enriched. Oppose the obamacare individual mandate factor? Yeah, the NRA literally fights to KEEP government imposed mandate called training it just "happens" to provide. There's NO difference.

The NRA is acting as a insulator between us and our rights while claiming to be a conduit to them. Think about thr brutal irony - they are saying "we will protect and defend your right to defend yourself(just send us money) - you don't need to bother with defending your right to defend yourself. Let the "professionals" handle it. (I had a NRA lobbyist actually say that to me!). PS. Send us more money!!! PSS. Send more money and get this "free" duffle bag.

Yeah uh huh. The NRA is a con and I ain't aftaid to say it. Not should anyone else be!

When after years of loyal NRA membership, and having acted as a hunting safety instructor and rangemaster, I discovered that only life members have a vote for a really limited slate of directors. The NRA had become the type of fund raising political machine I abhor.

After declining to renew my dues, I had to change my home phone number and PO Box to stop the onslaught of paid solicitors. I also dropped my instruction and range duties.

NRA has got nothing from me for a long time. Regular members are just cash cows with no vote. I send my cash to GOA and local groups. "Lairds of Fairfax" is an apt name for those who would be elitists at the expense of Constitutional Rights, which were given to us by the Founders, and taken away by no one.

I am as opposed to so-called 'gun control' as anyone. However, I cannot support any organization that supports or recognizes ANY gun laws whatsoever beyond the Second Amendment itself. I do not trust any government, or agency thereof, to keep its word on ANY subject. therefore I protect my God-given rights myself. No one can or will do it for me, except it be in their own interests to do so. Thus, I trust only individuals like myself, and no manipulatable organizations or groups.Always shop at BlackMart- where we don't KNOW you !

You're right Mike! The NRA cannot be trusted to fulfil it's presumed purpose.

I didn't always feel this way but as many pointed out, they were missing every time there was a fight. Then, when they found that others were going to make one anyway, and would probably win, they immediately tried to take it over, and the calls for funding increased. I know this because I observing it and was on the receiving end of it, as were many others.

Gun owners and the American people have been betrayed by everyone connected to politics and the judiciary, and the media (mustn’t forget them!) who seem to gain the greatest satisfaction from wiping the posteriors with the Bill of Rights and Constitution.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.